Just Like Your Daddy

In his younger days, my father gave new meaning to the term "speeding".

One of my earliest memories is being in the back seat of his new Ford Convertible. I was riding with my four siblings aged 4 to 12. We were going on a day trip somewhere and leaving later than my father wanted. We were loaded up in the car and my father was blowing the horn for my mother. She came out and said she wasn't ready and that she needed something from town before we left. My father got upset and drove us the mile to town and back at over 100MPH. It wasn't the first or last time he drove us that fast.

He loved to race. One time when he had just gotten a new Buick Roadmaster  (always with the biggest motor) his partner had just taken delivery of a new Oldsmobile. The got into an argument about whose car was fastest and decided to race the forty miles from Houston to Galveston . I don't remember who won. 

He had a reputation with all the local police and State troupers . He got so many tickets that no one wanted to sell him insurance. 

The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree, so I fell right in line with the speeding. Looking back, its amazing that I survived. 

Life in a small Texas town was boring and evenings were spent with a car load of buddies driving    around town. Everyone would pitch in a quarter or half dollar and that would supply the fuel for the evening. 

One evening in particular stands out in my mind. We were cruising around in the families 57 Ford Rag Top. There was a carload of guys from the next town and every time we met, we would have an impromptu race. My Ford was white, as was the out of towners car. As we came along side them on the main drag, I called out, "See if you can catch me". The passenger motioned to the rear, and said something, but I didn't understand what he said.

We were right at the street that went in front of the high school, so I locked the brakes and made a panic right turn. I burned rubber as I accelerated , I glanced in my rear view mirror and could see a  white car behind me. One more block and I locked the brakes again and did another right panic turn. I floored the pedal again and that is when the State Trouper cut on his flashing lights. The white car I had seen following wasn't the out of town guys, but the Highway patrol. 

I couldn't hardly breath as the trouper walked up to my car. "Drivers License!" he said gruffly. With shaking hands I fished my license out of my wallet and handed it to him. He examined it and then with a smirk he said ,"Boy, looks like your just like your daddy". I was surprised that he only gave me a warning.

Disposable society

Our refrigerator is seventeen years old. It's still working good and the only problem it has we created. We cut it off and left the doors open while we were in Italy for four months. The AC was turned off those four months , so it must have gotten really hot in the house, It caused the gaskets on the refrigerator door to swell and the results is that the door no longer closes on its own. We try to be careful, but have left it open over night several times. We decided that maybe it was time for a new one. The refrigerator it replaced was over twenty years old. We gave it away and just found out a while back that its in a farm house and still running. Its over thirty five years old now!

We stopped at Sears to see what they have. Found a sales man and told him were looking for a new refrigerator . He asked "How old is the one you have now?" "Seventeen years" I responded. Salesman smirking, answers, " The new ones won't last that long". 

At first I thought it was just a dumb salesman , making a dumb comment. 

Went to Best Buy and got the same reaction from the salesman there.

It just doesn't sound like a very convincing sales pitch. When I was selling autos and someone came in with a twenty year old vehicle, I never said , " Ha, the new ones won't last that long"

We going to just keep the old one for now.

Living metrically

Life In The Boot

I first learned a little about the metric system in high school. I wasn't impressed. That was because I hadn't grasped the importance of how simple the metric system was and how stupid our english method of measurements was. 

I can remember that there was talk in the news about how the US was going to have to join the rest of the world in using the far superior system. They had even set a target date for the switchover to be completed. It never happened. Since I spend and have spent so much time in Italy , meters, kilometer and liters have become second nature to me. Its so simple. You basically start with one and just add zeros for each increment of measurement. A far cry from the twelve inches to make a foot and three feet to make a yard and so on,and so on, and so stupid so on.  Lets don't even talk about the english liquid measurement. 

There is one measurement however, That I have been unable to adopt. Its the measurement of gas millage. We measure miles per gallon. In the metric system they measure how many liters it takes to go a hundred kilometers  . I understand why they do it, but no matter how I try I just can't think in those terms. My little car uses around six liters per hundred kilometers... I only know that because the instant milage is displayed on the dash board.

A Penny A Bale

Life In The Boot

Yesterday they  baled square bales on the pasture I can see from our balcony. They do rounds bales on the other pastures that are further away. They have done it the same way for the eight years we have been living here. The first year I watched them as they went through the routine of picking up the bales. The father walked besides a low trailer being pulled by a tractor. That first year, the tractor was being driving by a boy about  eight years old. It bothered me that the father kept screaming coldly , "Slow down!" Or "Speed up!".

I tried hauling hay when I was in high school. If my memory serves me correctly, we worked as a team of about eight guys. We were paid a penny a bale each. So if we picked up, loaded and unloaded 1500 bales, we each made 15 bucks. It wasn't all work as a lot of time was spent riding back and forth to the barns. The worst part was the itching. I only did it once.

That little boy that was driving that tractor eight years ago has grown up. Now he walks along side the trailer as his little brother drives the tractor. Nothing has changed as he also was  constantly  screaming , ,"Slow down!" Or "Speed up!"

Again And Again

The merchant ship I worked on in the sixties was a WW2 vintage C2 freighter. They built about 200 of them from 1940-45. It was 25 years old when I got on and I doubt it if it stayed in service for many more years. There was a team of four sailors that worked all the time chipping rust and painting. They had neat little air powered tools that were called "jitterbugs". The tool had four plungers and had the effect of having four hammers chipping at the same time. It took a while, but I got used to the irritating noise they made. At some point those four guys started at the fore end of the ship and slowly worked their way aft. When they got to the end, they just went back and started the process all over again. After 25 years, I don't know how much metal could have been left

I thought about those sailors yesterday as we were chipping rust and painting on a metal railing That ship and our property here had/have the same problem. The ocean .  We already worked on this railing a few years ago. I have  to chip and paint on the entry gate and our burglar bars every year. I don't like it , but I like being near the ocean . How  do they say? "It goes with the territory". I say , "Are we having fun yet?" At any rate life is about repetition. What would we do without it? What if we  had to mow the lawn ,paint the house , wash the car or walk the dog only  once. What would we do with our selves. The wouldn't be much left to do other than to sit around  and write a bunch of silly stories. 

If Cars Could Talk

Yesterday, while parking my car near the lake downtown, I saw a 57 Chevy that looked to be in mint condition. Someones pride and joy I am sure. Old cars can really bring back old memories. That 57 Chevy reminded me of some of my wilder days that I just as well forget. It also reminded me of something that happened years ago while I was working on my brothers used car lot.
One day, an elderly Hispanic man came in with a twenty-plus years old station wagon. He said it was still running pretty good, but with the constant repairs , he had decided to get something newer and smaller and more reliable. He had raised his large family in that old car, but it was just him and his wife now and he didn't need a wagon anymore.
He picked out a car and as we did the paper work, his old car was pulled around to the back of the lot and parked next to the others that were waiting to make their final trip to a wrecking yard.
The paperwork being finished, I escorted the new owner to his new ride. I explained some of the conveniences that he had not had on his old car. He thanked me and as I walked back into the office, he was backing his new car out of the lot.
I finished up the paperwork and made a key-tag for the old trade-in. I stepped out of the office and was surprised to see that the car I had just sold, had not driven off, but was parked near the old car I had just taken in trade. The owner was out there standing next to his old car. I walked over and asked if there was anything else I could help him with. He shook his head and looked at me smiling , he sighed, and said “ If that old car could talk”.

I could say the same thing about every car I ever owned.

My Mothers Bluebonnets

I grew up in the country on my Grandfathers property. My parents had moved into the tired old frame house when they got married. At that time it had no indoor plumbing or electricity. My father was a hustler and after about five years, they added on a bathroom and had electricity run to the house from the town that was a mile away. I wasn't present for those lean years, but my older brothers remember. The house sat back about two hundred yards from the main hi-way. The five acres between the house and the road were farmed by a tenant farmer that lived nearby. He rotated every year between corn and cotton. We loved the years he planted cotton as we could pick it and earn a penny a pound. A good picker would have cleaned out the five acres in less than a day. It took us a week. We didn't used the long pick sacks like the pros, we just slid cardboard boxes along and picked one row at a time. I had plenty pocket money those summers.
When I was twelve, we built a new home in front of the old one. The old one was jacked up and with huge beams and tires placed under it, moved the two hundred yards across the road. My grandfather had it repaired and rented it out.
The old tenant farmer died so my grandfather had the five acres graded smooth and planted grass. He bought us a riding lawnmower and I was put in charge of keeping it mowed. I don't remember how it happened, but the next spring the five acres was about eighty percent covered with Bluebonnets. It struck a soft spot in my mothers heart and that patch of Bluebonnets became her passion. She talked with the local county agent and got tips on how to make the Bluebonnets flourish. A single Bluebonnet, or even a handful don't have much of a bouquet. However five acres were a different story. If you happened to be on the north side of that patch any evening , a mild southern breeze became intoxicating . I remember the many times when my mother and I would stand silently in that breeze enjoying the perfume.
My siblings and I all moved away and had our own families. Every year we all enjoyed returning home to visiting my mother when the Bluebonnets were in full bloom. Many a roll of Kodak film were spent taking photos in the middle of Bluebonnet patch.
My Mother passed on and the property was sold. These last few weeks I have been thinking of her when I see the Bluebonnets coming up everywhere. I would like to go back one evening to see if her Bluebonnets are there this year. Wonder if I might find her standing in the evening breeze?

©2014

Shark Shooter

We were steaming somewhere between Acapulco and San Diego. I had just finished my night watch and was enjoying my breakfast before going below to catch some z's. News travels fast on a ship and I noticed some of the crew were hurriedly moving topside. A disinterested Yeoman at my table didn't move. I asked him  If he knew what was going on. He said that the weapons officer was going to shoot some sharks. My imagination went wild and I envisioned them  firing the 5" cannon.  I ran up topside and found that it was far less dramatic. The weapons office ,who must have narrowly  qualified with the minimum height for an officer, was standing on the tail of the ship with what looked like a Thompson Machine Gun. There were a dozen or so sailors around him, all looking over the edge. I pressed  forward to get a better look and saw there were several sharks tailing us. The officer told the group to stand back as he raised the Thompson. I was skeptical  of the situation and moved way back out of the way. Just as I turned the officer  opened fire. The scene became like a cartoon where someone fires a gun and the recoil drives them back. The officer lost his footing and seemed to be falling back as he fired. The last few rounds caught the lip of the deck and pieces of the lip and the bullets flew all over  . Miraculously, no one was hurt. I expected a big commotion would follow this rash act, but I never heard anything more about the incident. ©2013

61 Vette

In 1962, My older brother convinced my mother to buy a 1961 white Corvette. Just my little sister and I were still at home , so we had to take turns as to who would get the Vette on Saturday night.

One Saturday night it was not my turn so I was cruising around with some friends. There was nothing to do in that small town, so cruising was all we did. We had all pitched in a quarter which had been enough to buy three or four gallons of gas. Enough to last the night.

There were at least twenty cars cruising that night. All of a sudden they all started heading out East of town. That could only mean one thing. There was going to be a drag race.

East of town there was a straight section of a seldom traveled farm road. Years before, some enterprising guy had measured off a quarter mile and painted a large "START" and " FINISH" at each end. The local news paper had vilified the action with front page photos. Multiple black tire marks gave evidence that it had been used often.

The guy I was riding with did a 180, burning rubber all the way. We arrived on time as we could see the two pairs of head lights at the far end of the strip.

Just like in some fifties movie, we lined the road with headlights lighting up the strip. Someone with a makeshift flag got between the contestants and they blasted off with screaming tires and smoke.

We didn't know who it was until they flashed by the finish line. A Black 409 Chevy beat a White Corvette by two lengths.

My little sister was driving the Vette.

©2013